


Things they don't tell you about girlfriends

by SevenCatsInn



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Cuddles, F/F, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hopefully they become canon, Hurt/Comfort, Joel is a protective dad, Lesbian Relationship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23301844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenCatsInn/pseuds/SevenCatsInn
Summary: Ellie doesn't want to take her medicine.
Relationships: Dina & Joel (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	Things they don't tell you about girlfriends

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: ESL + my first fic, if you like punctuation, good grammar and dialogue that makes sense you may want to skip this one.  
> I wrote it as a single story but it was too long so I cut it in two, if you are here for the fluff it's in the second part.

Ellie checked the last cabinet and huffed, she liked scavenging old buildings, especially those that seemed frozen it time like this one, but the day had been long and she couldn’t remember the last time she had a good night of sleep, she just wanted to finish her job and go home.

She moved to another room and looked around.

The house was a mess, clearly someone packed in a hurry a long time ago and never came back, a pile of clothing thrown on the bed, an open suitcase laying on the floor half full, the same sense of suspended time.

She shoved the clothes and several pairs of shoes in a sack and checked the suitcase, the zips worked fine. She packed what was left of the clothing and went down the stairs dragging the luggage.

Jesse was checking drawers in the kitchen, he gave her the ok and pointed to the floor .

“The upper floor is clear,” she said “you finish here, I’ll go check the basement”.

She moved to the stairs thinking of dinner and her rumbling stomach “Almost done, one more room and then back”.

The basement was gloomy, a thick smell of wet drywall and mold filled the air, a faint rhythmic sound coming from inside. Something wasn’t right, she reached for her shotgun and slowly opened the door trying not to make a noise.

She looked around in silence, making sure there was no imminent danger and moved inside. One step, two steps, everything was silent now, she was alone.

The basement proved to be as fruitful as the house, there was a metal case packed with tools and a compressor that looked like it could work, she moved past an assortment of gym equipment and a workout bench with a tattered leather seat gnawed by rats and found a wooden crate stamped with government symbols she didn’t recognize..

When she looked inside she burst out laughing.

Back at the settlement the guys at the community warehouse didn’t stop joking at her famous luck, she always seemed to find the best bounty.

Once she came back from a scavenging round with seven bottles of single malt whiskey. Not the moonshine distilled in the settlement from potatoes and cereals, authentic Scottish whiskey still sealed in expensive looking metal boxes since before the outbreak.

Then there was a half case of canned bacon that brought up memories of her journey with Joel and of dead hunters in Pittsburgh. She wondered if anybody ever found that guy’s stash of bacon tins. The bacon wasn’t even that good, wrapped in paper caked with grease and faintly tasting of metal, not nearly as good as the smoked hams they made in Jackson anyway, but her stash was big enough that every family in the settlement got a can.

Most of the canned food they found during their patrols nowadays wasn’t edible anymore, a lot of the cans were bulging, the rotten content spilling out from the corroded seals, but some were still good and rare items were highly prized.

Occasionally they would stumble on fresher cans with the stamps of the FEDRA administration, the canned tuna and mackerel she remembered from her days at the orphanage, and beans of course. The quarantine zones seemed to run on beans.

Once she found a huge square can of FEDRA issue chocolate rations from the time when the military still distributed them just before the year of her birth. They were dense rectangles individually sealed in mylar foil, “Chocolate ration TYP II – Dark”, six thick squares of pure bliss and a patriotic slogan on the wrapping. The wrappers left her thinking, the bars from her era didn’t have any uplifting writing, only a warning about stealing and reselling government property.

Joel had looked at the bar like it came from outer space turning it around in his hands, “I haven’t seen one of these in a while. ”, he seemed lost in thought, the strange expression on his face only lasting for a moment before he started unwrapping it.

“Bloomed.” he said, critically appraising the powdery surface. “Barely, it’s still edible.” He grinned at her and bit into it nodding in appreciation.

“You’re lucky they’re not the butterscotch ones, those tasted foul even before they expired”.

She grinned back.

She had never even tasted real chocolate before, real chocolate belonged to the past, when countries traded goods all over the world and people could buy food from another continent in every corner store.

In the quarantine zone back in Boston, and before that in her previous schools, FEDRA issued some “morale boost” rations on special occasions, but the chocolate was a surrogate made of torrefied nuts and malt extract solids.

Not that she’d ever complain, she loved chocolate, real or fake.

Joel sometimes joked that she should really bring home some coffee one of these days, apparently coffee surrogates were nothing like the real thing and the bane of his existence. She would probably never find out.

Today’s discovery was almost as good, four big cans of cocoa powder and granulated sugar. Maria would know what to do with them, she’d ration them out to the settlers and they would have enough left to bake something special for the next town meeting at the church. She could almost see Dina’s reaction to the news that Ellie had another of her lucky days.

The thought made her smile.

When she entered the house she was starving, a delicious smell greeted her at the door and she found Joel in the kitchen, busy cooking dinner.

“I’m becoming the perfect housewife” he said, lifting the lid to show his creation, a dark brown stew with chunks of something floating in it. “I even made some cornbread to go with it.”

He was starting to ask her how was the patrol and if they had any trouble when Ellie grabbed a piece of the cornbread and shoved it in her mouth.

“Hey, keep those dirty paws away! Go wash your hands...” He gave her a good look “Actually you need a shower, you look like you just rolled out of a garbage pile”.

He cautiously sniffed in her direction with a grimace “And what’s this smell? Where did Jesse take you?”

Ellie sighed “I’m fine Joel. It’s just some mold, I got into an old basement and it was all dirty and nasty, but guess what? I found some cocoa rations hidden away in this dude’s mancave. That stuff must be older than you but I bet we can still eat it. I can still eat it!” She laughed grabbing another yellow cube from the plate and walked away to get a shower.

They had a nice dinner together chatting about their day, Joel had been busy all day overseeing the repairs to the outer wall and Ellie was in a good mood after her successful mission.

She had a plan to go see Dina after dinner, they hadn’t seen each other since her girlfriend had been recruited to help with the inventory. She had hoped Dina would be at the warehouse when she came back earlier, but no luck.

Girlfriend. It was so new it still felt weird.

She relished the thought for a moment, then finished her stew, stuffed the last morsel of bread in her mouth and stretched with a satisfied yawn.

Joel gave her a knowing look, “You really look tired, you’d better get a nap before you go see Dina. You don’t want to fall asleep on her and start snoring while she’s telling you about her day. Trust me”.

Ellie was about to protest but changed her mind “You speak from experience?”.

“You have no idea!” Joel chuckled and gestured to the door. “Go, I’ll wake you in an hour”.

There was no need for it, less than half an hour later she woke in a cold sweat, goosebumps all over her body. Her stomach was cramping badly and she could feel a wave of nausea urging her to get up.

She tried to sit on her bed and felt so dizzy the room seemed to be spinning.

The nausea was getting worse every second, she could feel a surge of acrid saliva fill her mouth, she darted to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet.

She puked and gagged and then she puked some more, the retches coming in waves. She was about to get up to wash her mouth when a knock on the door startled her.

“You ok in there? Ellie?”

“I’m fine Joel. I just…” she couldn’t finish the sentence before another wave of vomit erupted from her stomach. She cleaned her mouth “I’m fine, It’s just. I think I ate something bad” and she barfed again.

“I hear it, do you need help?

“Wha…NO! No no, I can manage. But are you ok? No vomit? Pain? Nothing?” She needed to puke again and it took her a while to catch her breath.

“I’m perfectly fine Ellie. Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“I’m ok, I just need some restblearghhh!”

Joel sighed shaking his head, “Just hang in there, kiddo. I’ll go make you some tea. Call me if you need me, ok?”

“Ok, but I’m fine!” Ellie went back to barfing, clinging to the toilet to stop the room from spinning.

Joel was sitting in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, a serious expression on his face.

He hated to see Ellie sick, even a little bit sick, but these things happened, he was sure she was going to be alright.

The water never seemed to boil, he started thinking back at their dinner, they ate the same things, he was feeling fine. It couldn’t be the stew, no way it was his stew. He had a ton of it, more than Ellie, it was good.

He decided it wasn’t the stew.

He was carefully scanning his body for any odd feeling or pain when he heard knocking on the door and Dina peeked inside “Ellie?”.

“Come in Dina!” Joel called out without moving from the table “In the kitchen”.

Dina came in looking a bit puzzled “Hi Joel, is Ellie here? We had a uuhh... we said we would meet after dinner and...”.

Joel pointed at the ceiling “She’s upstairs, she’s not feeling too well. Something she ate… maybe. I’m making her some tea”.

“Not too well? Oh, that’s the noise then. I thought it sounded like someone barfing”.

Joel looked at her slightly amused, as far as he could tell Dina was always the same, bold, upfront and straight to the point, so different from Ellie that their easy bonding had always been a bit of a mystery to him.

“Yeah” he admitted, “she’s puking her guts out. She says she’s fine but, you know her”.

Dina didn’t seem discouraged “Do you mind if I go up, you know… girls things. She may let me help”. Joel smiled, he liked her grit, she was definitely one of a kind.

“Sure, you can try. Bring her the tea, will you?”

Dina grabbed the cup of tea and walked up the familiar stairs deep in thought, “Fat chance” she mumbled, more likely Ellie would get mad at her but she could try.

She was about to knock on the bathroom door when she paid closer attention to the noises coming from inside. The loud, unmistakable noises of someone having a severe bout of diarrhea. She froze, her hand only inches above the door knob.

When Joel saw Dina enter the kitchen with the tea cup still in her hands he gave her a questioning look. “Did she kick you out?”

“No, I think we should give her a moment. She’s, you know. Busy”.

“Busy?”.

“Yeah, the problem moved southward”.

“South?...Ohh. Southward”.

“Yep!” She sat down and took a sip from the cup “What did she eat anyway? It’s really doing a number on her”

“I don’t know. We had dinner together. She was alright, ate like a wolf”

“What did you have?”

“I made a stew and cornbread” said Joel reluctantly.

“You made it?” She smiled at him.“Everything fresh? No dented cans? Old meat?”

“No, it was all good. I ate a ton of it too”

“Well, you would be puking too if it was the dinner. Maybe something she had earlier? She was out on patrol with Jesse today”.

“Yes, they went out scavenging. I don’t think she ate anything tho, she said she was starving when she came home. Grabbed some cornbread right out of the...”. The image of Ellie stuffing her face with hands covered in grime flashed in Joel’s mind. “Oh fuck it, could it be the mold?”

“Mold?” Dina made a face.

“She came back all dirty, clothes, hands, hair, everything. Said she looted this basement covered in mold. I sent her to take a shower but she’d already gobbed down some of the bread”.

Dina seemed pensive. “Might be” She put the empty cup on the table and stood up. “Can you check on her? I’ll go ask my mom to make her something, she has a remedy for everything. I’ll be back in a flash”.

Joel poured another cup of tea and went up the stairs. Ellie was clearly still busy. He knocked gently “How are we doing? I brought you some tea”.

Ellie grunted a pained answer “I’m fine. I don’t need anything”

“Stop telling you’re fine Ellie. You have it jetting out of both ends!”

He heard her grunting again “I’m fine, I promise. Just go”.

Joel rubbed his face in frustration “Alright. I’ll be downstairs but call if you need me. Ok?”

He wondered if he should mention Dina.

“Ok, don’t worry” she muttered “Oh fuck. Joel? Go downstairs! NOW! I need to be alone urghh”.

Joel left in a hurry.

He was still sitting in the kitchen watching the tea grow cold and trying to keep himself from checking on Ellie again when Dina returned.

She put a jar of herbs on the table and sat down.“Is the water still boiling? My mother gave me a decoction, two heaping tablespoons in a pint of water and she said not to steep it, it needs to boil for at least five minutes, for the tree bark and… stuff. How is she?”.

“Same as before. I’m forbidden from going upstairs. What’s in this?” he asked, measuring the right amount of herbs and putting the kettle back on the stove.

Dina shrugged “I’m not sure really, I only know a bit about herbs, my mom is the expert. I took it a million times tho, it sooths the stomach ache and helps with the runs too. She even gives it to children, Joel. It won’t do any harm to Ellie”.

It was Joel’s turn to shrug “I know, I’m just a worried dad Dina. Have mercy” he laughed.

Joel rummaged in a cupboard for a while taking out a big glass mug and a strainer then sat down again.

“Is she mad I came?”

“I had no time to tell her really, she didn’t want an audience”

Dina chuckled “I guess not. I will go upstairs anyway”

“I figured” he said snorting.

“You don’t mind if I stay, do you? I told my mom I would sleep over”.

Joel nodded “I don’t, you two had sleepovers since we arrived in Jackson. I’m not sure about her tho”.

Dina gave another shrug “I think I can convince her. I have my ways” she said with confidence.

Joel gave her an intense look but didn’t say a word.

Dina went on “Someone should keep an eye on her anyway and clearly she doesn’t want her worried dad around while she’s blowing up the toilet”.

“Mmmm” he mumbled. It was obvious Joel had something in mind but was trying to decide how to say it.

They sat in silence for a while.

“Dina?”

“Joel?”

“I know you’re her best friend and...you know I like you and all, but...about this new thing”.

Dina looked at him with raised eyebrows waiting for him to go on.

Joel crossed his arms and leaned forward “Are you dating my daughter?”

Dina didn’t miss a beat “Yes” she said trying not to grin “Are you going to give me the talk?”

Joel squinted struggling to keep a straight face too “No, I’m saving it for another time. I’m just putting out a general warning that people have limbs removed if they hurt Ellie”.

Dina barely managed not to laugh “Well, we have something in common then. I feel like murdering anyone that might hurt her. We’ll get along great”.

He still didn’t look satisfied, “You treat her right, uh”.

She became serious “You know I will”.

“Mm Mm”. He sighed loudly but couldn’t suppress a smile and stood up shaking his head.

Dina couldn’t stop grinning.

He strained the decoction, gave it a sniff and put the jug on the table in front of Dina.

“Here you go Florence Nightingale, if anyone can convince her to drink this, it’s you. I still want you to call me if she gets worse and don’t make me regret trusting you”.

Dina was about to say something but he went on.

“And I want an update in two hours, I’ll come check on you girls… I’ll knock first. Anything else she may need? What did your mom say?”

Dina thought for a moment “Boil more water, she should only drink water that was boiled and she’ll need a lot of liquids. Maybe more of this decoction too, it takes a while for it to work and she will probably throw up half of this”.

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a story behind my plunge into writing fanfiction, I lost a bet and my dickish friend decided that writing a romantic fic would be my punishment. I got to pick the fandom but the fic had to be a romantic one and she gave me the prompt “Black mold diarrhea”.  
> This was supposed to be a hurt/comfort fic, it turned out more like a crack fic with fluff (sorry V, I tried).  
> In the end it was a fun experience.


End file.
